Stocks dead, bonds deader till 2022: Pimco

Commentary: Gross, El-Erian warn of very slow growth ahead

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Big money managers are warning investors. They’re now citing the Bible: “Seven lean years.” No recovery till 2016. That was Jeremy Grantham back a few years ago. His GMO firm manages $104 billion.

Now Bill Gross and Mohamed El-Erian, the co-CEOs at the $2 trillion Pimco money managers, are citing the same biblical warning to jar investors awake and prepare for the coming lean years of slow, low growth and austerity. Except in Pimco’s new warning, the future just got much, much darker for investors — no recovery until 2022.

Norbert Schiller/World Economic Forum

Pimco’s Mohamed A. El-Erian,

Earlier in the summer — back when most investors were totally distracted by campaign drama and betting heavily on a new president, anticipating a post-election bull market — many were expecting Corporate America would unleash trillions in hoarded reserves, stimulate a recovery and new bull. Back then, Reuters, Forbes, CNBC, Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal and rest of the obsessed media simply yawned at Gross and El-Erian’s warning that equities hit a “dead end in terms of significant appreciation.”

“Dead end?” No recovery till after the 2020 elections? Yes, one angry headline even said Gross was “faithless” with stocks. Why? Conventional wisdom tells us markets run in cycles. So investors believe it’s now time for a new bull. Gross and El-Erian disagree.

Warren Buffett and Jack Bogle first mentioned a “new normal” with slow, low growth back in 2002. It fell on deaf ears. Since the 2008 meltdown the same warnings are coming from gurus like Grantham, Gross, El-Erian and others. Ignore their warnings at your peril.

America’s economy, markets downshifting to long, low, slow-growth

Perhaps the single best description of America’s historic shift comes from Time magazine’s economics editor, Rana Foroohar, in “Why Stocks Are Dead (And Bonds Are Deader).” That column’s a must-read to help America’s 95 million investors understand the American economy and markets — from the Reagan/Bush generation ... to the bank meltdown in 2008 ... to the dark forecasts about the coming decade.

Here’s a summary of 10 points Foroohar picked up from meetings with El-Erian and Gross.

1. America fell in love with a Goldilocks economy

As early as 2005 Pimco warned that investors, voters and politicians had fallen in love with “a Goldilocks economy, the notion that markets were in a long period of growth and stability, neither too hot nor too cold.” El-Erian “never believed the bull” about wise “world’s central bankers and the seemingly endless growth of emerging markets.”

2. Economists predicting 3% to 4% growth are misleading America

Pimco was “quick to see, post-2008, the passing of an era,” says Foroohar. The unthinkable was happening: “The U.S. flirting with default, unlimited central-bank money dumps were suddenly happening.” Worse, today “while most experts (including those within the Obama administration) were plotting how to move from recession back to the trend growth rate of 3% or 4%,” Pimco concluded that a low 2% growth will probably be the New Normal “not for a couple of years but for decades.”

3. Warning: Too many investors, banks, politicians still in denial

Many investors are still disappointed with their nest eggs, in denial, ignoring Pimco’s message, trapped in wishful thinking, hoping for a return of the short-term bull-bear cycles common in recent decades, unwilling to face the harsh reality of the New Normal with slow growth everywhere: consumer spending, jobs, government revenues, corporate earnings, stocks, bonds, commodities, even America’s role in the world.

4. Investing is like surfing and the money wave may soon crash

Surfing is a popular Gross metaphor: Imagine waves of investor opinions moving stock prices. Whether surfing or investing, you “ride the wave,” sense the crest, always knowing that “ultimately a good surfer has to kick out.” Or get wiped out “when the wave crashes. And the money wave, says Gross, may be ready to crash.”

Intraday Data provided by SIX Financial Information and subject to terms of use.
Historical and current end-of-day data provided by SIX Financial Information. Intraday data
delayed per exchange requirements. S&P/Dow Jones Indices (SM) from Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
All quotes are in local exchange time. Real time last sale data provided by NASDAQ. More
information on NASDAQ traded symbols and their current financial status. Intraday
data delayed 15 minutes for Nasdaq, and 20 minutes for other exchanges. S&P/Dow Jones Indices (SM)
from Dow Jones & Company, Inc. SEHK intraday data is provided by SIX Financial Information and is
at least 60-minutes delayed. All quotes are in local exchange time.